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RE Spidey - apparently now they can't find a good ending to it. I wonder how long they can go with selling the beta test tickets before people say enough already. Maybe they will make their money back and just call it quits

The problems with the actual book of the musical are amazing. They're got DECADES of stories to work from... stories that work pretty damn well... and they've added this whole strange Greek mythology. Of all their problems, that might be the one that kills them. Or the flying's just so cool that none of us will care.

Forget the Green Goblin or the multi-legged villainess Arachne. The most entertaining rival for Spider-Man – the web-slinging hero of the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” — may prove to be Glinda and Elphaba, the witches who defy gravity in the blockbuster show “Wicked.”

For the first time, “Spider-Man” has knocked “Wicked” from its usual perch as the highest-grossing show on Broadway, claiming the top spot for itself last week. “Spider-Man” beat “Wicked” by just $58, with the teen-superhero musical grossing $1,588,514 while the revisionist Oz musical grossed $1,588,456. “Wicked,” though, had 100 percent of its audience paying for tickets (with an average paid admission of $109.76) while “Spider-Man” was offering some discount and free tickets during its preview period; its average paid admission was $102.86.

Still, “Spider-Man” — which boasts a creative team that includes the director Julie Taymor (“The Lion King”) and the composers Bono and the Edge, of U2 — played to full houses last week, as did “Wicked.” The Foxwoods Theater, Spidey’s home, has 1,930 seats to sell, while the Gershwin Theater, home of “Wicked,” has 1,809 to sell. While the Gershwin has fewer seats, the “Wicked” team has far more experience judging how many they can sell at premium prices of up to $300 apiece, which can bump up the weekly grosses.